KIOCL to invest Rs 3,500 cr in various green and brownfield projects

KIOCL, a Government of India enterprise and a manufacturer of pellets, is planning to invest around Rs 3,500 crore in various brownfield, solar and mining projects. The company has also signed a MoU with SAIL to set up a greenfield project for pellet manufacturing.

Addressing shareholders, company's CMD, M V Subba Rao, said that KIOCL was a debt free company and had surplus funds, which would be invested for growth. 

The Rs 3500 crore proposed investment includes setting up of a 1.79 LTPA Coke oven plant and a 2.0 LTPA Ductile Iron Supun Pipe Plant along with the modernisation of a blast furnace unit. The investment will also be used to develop the Devadari iron ore block at Bellary in Karnataka by the end of 2022, to set up a 2 MTPA pellet plant with RINL at Vizag, modernisation of a pellet plant at Mangalore, mineral exploration activities and for setting up a 5 MW solar plant in Karnataka.

The company's exports are driven mainly by demand from China, which consumes nearly 50 per cent of iron ore produced in the world. But off late, as part of derisking strategy, the company has started exporting to UK, Japan, South Korea and Oman among others. These markets now account for 48 per cent of the company's exports.

KIOCL's production stood at 2.24 million tonnes in 2018-19.